A friend and I started refinishing my two floors of oak and one floor of pine before I moved into my house. We ran out of time before we had to return to my previous home and hired someone to do the polyurethane. He recommended going with water based and said it cost a little more than oil based but didn't have the smell. When I came back with my stuff a few weeks later the grain on the floor is raised and it feels really rough. I don't like to touch it or walk on it in bare feet. He also gave me one price and now it is almost 3 times as much. How do I have him fix it? Was all my painful sanding in vain? He said he did 3 coats and screened between the first two. Does he have to go back to the beginning and resand? He wants to just screen and do another coat but I'm worried it won't make a difference. He also complained that I now have things in the house. Is it possible for him to do oil based on top? Would that be better? And I read online that water based only last two years and then you have to recoat, is this true? Help please!

It needs to be screened and recoated, we always use waterbase and it does not need to be recoated after two years, we have floors that have been done for 12 or 13 years that are still in great shape. It all depends on maintenance and care. As far as the price changing goes we never charge more than we agree on ahead of time, if there are charges that are going to come up it needed to be agreed upon before he proceeded with the project.

I'd be willing to bet you have two coats and no screening was done. If there were three and he did screen it the floor would be slick simple as that.

Two screenings on a 3 coat waterbased finish would take care of ANY grain raise. Something else is wrong here.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see what happens with screening again and doing another coat. I'll keep you posted. Thnx

So... Fourth coat was done on half the floor and there wasn't much improvement. I'd say 10 to 20% smoother on the oak floor but that's it, you can still feel the grain. And I might be imagining things but I think the grain is even more noticeable beacuse it is raised and now has a more shiny look compared to the lower parts. (the pine floor is about 75 % better so I'm going to go with it).

I want to know if I should now have him try doing a coat of oil-based poly? Would that work? Can you put oil overtop? Would one coat be enough?

The product he has been using is Basic Emulsion Satin. What oil-based product should he use on top of this? Does it matter which one in particular?

And since he did half the floor now one side has three coats, the othe floor. And then he stopped since there wasn't much improvement. Should he even them out? They don't look any different nor is there any difference in height.

Yes, you can recoat with oil-based, but not for about 30 days.

just screen and recoat. It probably does not have enough coats on it.

The guy I hired to do the finish after I sanded is getting frustrated since he says he's never had this problem before. I feel he missed something after the sanding and before the first coat of the Basic Emulsion. He says he doesn't use a sealer because of it raising the tanins (?sp). So he doesn't know what to do and doesn't want to keep putting more and more of the Basic Emulsion down if it isn't getting any better. I am the one who suggested using oil now since he was going to give up on the floors. I called Basic and they said to wait 2 weeks before applying a coat of oil-based and to make sure to screen. They also said the color would get darker which is too bad since I like the color so far.

So a few more questions.
Can you explain what screning and buffing are? I don't understand the difference. I know what sanding is since I rented the sander and used it but I don't know the details of the other two. At what point in the process do you screen and when do you buff?

How many coats of oil-based will I need? I'm having trouble getting this guy to stay committed so want to be prepared for getting him to do one more or two coats.

And finally is there a brand of oil I should use that would work well on top of the Basic Emulsion Satin?

Thank you for your help. At this point I'm ready to cry but am determined to have nice floors since I worked so hard on the sanding.

Screening and buffing are general terms but screening usually means that you put a screen abrasive under your buffer .And since screens come in many grits , it can refer to the process of evening out the floor after sanding is completed or it can mean that you are level sanding any one of your sealer or finish coats.

Just to give you a visual idea , most good companies will sand a floor and take the field and edges anywhere from 80 grit to 120 grit .Once this is done we usually use a disc buffer on the floor with approximately a 100 grit screen abrasive underneath it. This creates the appearance of one even grain pattern, removes the halo pattern that the edger creates and also closes the grain of the wood to an acceptable level to prepare it to accept finish or stain.

Now with the floor "buffed" you can apply stain, sealer or finish. One your first coat of sealer or finish dries, you naturally get some grain raise. More with water base and less with oil.

Next you buff the floor but with a fine grade screen or abrasive.This is also called level sanding the finish. I used to use my disc buffer for this with a maroon pad and 240 grit abrasive tape from 3M. I tried a Clarke square buffer and found it to be even better so now I happen to use the square buffer exclusively for level sanding between coats. I use a 220 grit abrasive screen under it.

After buffing the finish twice, any professional company should have accomplished a reasonably or very smooth finish. Some water based finishes or water based sealers are extremely difficult to buff out however as they melt and stick to your abrasive as they heat up.

You should be able to do one coat of oil and get an excellent result if he knows how to buff finish properly.



Fabulon is an excellent oil urethane and is one of the most durable. It tends to amber more over time than some others though. Also, Lenmar is an excellent oil urethane. Those are the two urethanes that have always given me excellent results. There are some others that are good as well like Duraseal and Last n Last.